Chapter 44: Father's Initial Status in the Family
Qiu Ming brought about twenty pounds of local specialties.
There are roughly five catties of braised pork, which is delicious whether steamed or stir-fried. There are also two large braised ducks and ten sausages. Knowing that Xixi loves sweets, Aunt Lan specially made ten boxes of sticky rice cakes, which can be eaten after being heated in a pot.
There were also three boxes of sweet and sour plum cakes, and finally six catties of mellow yellow rice wine.
Yellow rice wine is the most famous specialty of Qiu Ming's hometown, and local products such as yellow rice wine popsicles, yellow rice wine milk tea, and yellow rice wine ice cream have also emerged.
Every summer vacation in the past, Aunt Lan would make a big box of rice wine popsicles and store them in the refrigerator. The rice wine popsicles had a light rice wine flavor and were mixed with soft glutinous rice. The main ingredient was milk, and the taste was soft, glutinous and rich. You can hardly find rice wine popsicles like this in other places.
Since it wasn't convenient to make the popsicles ready-made and deliver them, Aunt Lan personally wrote down a recipe for homemade Shaoxing wine popsicles and placed it in a lining of the bag.
These things are filled with Pei Yiyan's childhood memories, and they are more meaningful than real gold and silver.
With two mouths to feed, the father and daughter couldn't possibly eat it all, and these local specialties couldn't be kept for long. Pei Yiyan had to mentally prepare herself for a while before she gritted her teeth and knocked on the doors of her neighbors, distributing some to each household.
This naturally includes Meng Zhiyao.
Halfway through the first semester of his freshman year, Pei Yiyan remained the same as always, aloof and unsmiling, yet unexpectedly, he made quite a few friends.
I don't know when it started, but the cold indifference that kept people at arm's length around him faded a lot.
Xixi is too young, so she will still be in the junior class of kindergarten in the new semester. With Chen Yihuan, who is in the senior class, taking care of her, the little girl is doing very well in kindergarten.
Pei Yiyan went to pick her up several times, and each time he encountered a bunch of little kids surrounding her.
He had already witnessed the little girl's popularity in Baicao County, so it didn't attract much of his attention.
After dinner, Pei Yiyan looked at stocks on his computer. He was particularly optimistic about several emerging technology companies and pondered how much to invest in them.
The phone in my pocket vibrated through the fabric.
Yan Yan's Mom: [Dear Xi Xi's Dad, my daughter Yan Yan has been coughing for the past few days due to a cold. She said Xi Xi gave her some medicine when she got home today, and her cough has stopped. We'd like to stock up on some medicine too. Sorry for bothering you.]
Feifei's Dad: [Dear Xixi's Mom and Xixi's parents, Feifei has told us that Xixi helped him cure his stuttering. Thank you so much! My husband and I just wanted to ask what the magic trick was, mainly because we're worried about how to deal with a relapse. *smiley face*]
Upon seeing the message, Pei Yiyan felt a wave of dizziness and gripped the edge of the sofa tightly with his fingers.
He frowned, his thick eyebrows furrowed, and suddenly lifted his eyelids to glare at a round little dumpling.
"Xixi, did you treat the children's illnesses at kindergarten?"
The little dumpling stammered and remained silent.
“Yanyan’s parents and Feifei’s parents have both tagged me and your mother in the group chat. You still haven’t confessed.”
Xi Xi's body trembled, she dropped the pen in her hand, and turned around looking incredulous.
"Yanyan and Feifei betrayed me!"
They promised to keep it a secret, but they actually told their parents.
Hmph, you can't trust a three-year-old's words. She'll never treat them again. She's a liar.
Pei Yiyan showed no sympathy for her: "Is she as miserable as me, betrayed by my leaky cotton-padded jacket time and time again?"
"Don't deny it, I'm not senile." The young father glanced at her indifferently. "The little monster said before that she would discuss the treatment with her father before she could get treatment, but she never did it."
The resentment and accusations from her father were almost tangible. Xi Xi waved her chubby little hand in front of her eyes, picked up her pen again, and practiced calligraphy with a serious expression.
Pei Yiyan glanced at the time, closed his laptop, stood up, took two long strides, and squatted down behind the little girl.
He leaned down and saw a page filled with the characters 'Pei Yiyan' written in a grid pattern; the handwriting was fairly neat.
"How's the practice going? Can you remember it?"
"dad"
"Do you want two moms?" Xixi asked, her eyes sparkling as she held the little rabbit eraser. "I'll find you another mom, and she can give you a simple name, okay?"
Pei Yiyan took a deep breath and smiled gently: "How about I call your grandma now and you two discuss it?"
Xi Xi quickly waved her hand and said, "No need, I think one grandma is just right."
You little rascal.
"Be content, I haven't even made you learn to write your mother's name yet." Pei Yiyan said with a stern father's face, but inwardly he was gloating. "Your mother's name has far more strokes than mine."
Xi Xi was skeptical and turned to a new page of the grid paper: "How do you write Mommy's name?"
"That's how it's written."
Pei Yiyan took the pen from her and, amidst the child's increasingly bitter and resentful expression, wrote down Meng Zhiyao's name.
Xi Xi covered her little chest. Ah, thank goodness Mom didn't ask her to learn to write!
A red indentation was imprinted on her soft, small fingers, standing out starkly against her snow-white skin.
"Alright, that's enough for today." Pei Yiyan stood up. "What would you like to eat?"
"Old Pei, I want a popsicle."
"?" Pei Yiyan picked at his ear, raising an eyebrow. "What did you call me?"
"Old Pei."
This time he heard it clearly. Pei Yiyan shook off the goosebumps on his body and interrogated him with a stern face: "Who did you learn that from?"
Not only did he make her look twenty or thirty years older, but where did this girl learn to call him that? And what kind of weird shows has she been watching behind his back?
That shouldn't be the case; the little girl is under his nose every day.
Of course, Xixi wouldn't say it was because her father's name was too difficult to write, so she racked her brains to come up with a lazy way to shorten the three characters to two.
She skillfully shifted the blame to the TV series: "Dad, that's what the adults on TV call him."
Pei Yiyan: "Nonsense."
“Xi Xi isn’t talking nonsense.”
The little ginseng spirit sat upright and spoke eloquently:
“The child’s mother calls the child’s father ‘husband,’ and the child’s father calls the child’s mother ‘wife.’ This is how adults express affection. Xixi calls you Lao Pei, which makes us seem close. Others will know that you are my father just by hearing it.”
Pei Yiyan had only two words in his mind: fallacy.
"This is pointless. Anyone with eyes can see we're father and daughter." He crossed his arms and sneered. "You can't be so disrespectful. Call me Dad, not Old Pei."
"Or I'll take away your snacks."
You can cut off my head and let my blood flow, but you can't stop eating snacks.
Having its weakness exploited, the little monster had no choice but to submit to its father's tyranny, and muttered unhappily as it put away its homework: "Sigh, men are just so troublesome."
Pei Yiyan was so angry that he fell backwards.
He held back: "Your mother said she'll come over later, and after you finish your popsicle, change into some clean clothes."
The child was clean and tidy when she entered the kindergarten in the morning, but she was filthy when she was picked up in the afternoon. If Pei Yiyan hadn't seen her playing on the slide and climbing up and down, he would have suspected that the kindergarten had sent her to work in the coal mine.
Xixi changed into the dress that Aunt Huahua gave her. No matter how much she rolled around on the ground, she didn't have to worry about getting it dirty. She was always clean and looked like a fresh baby.
Pei Yiyan marveled at the cutting-edge technology, and couldn't help but recall that the little girl had mentioned that Hua Hua's younger sister had also knitted a garment for the tree spirit.
Is it probably some kind of cutting-edge technology?
Meng Zhiyao rushed back home immediately after school on Friday.
The father and daughter had just helped air out the blankets, sheets, and pillows during the day, and you can still smell the sunshine.
The quilt was exceptionally fluffy and soft after being aired out. Xi Xi was able to sleep with her mother as she wished. She was happy but restrained and didn't roll around on the bed. Instead, she opened her big, dark grape-like eyes and looked at Meng Zhiyao.
It was Meng Zhiyao's first time putting a child to sleep, and apart from a slight feeling of discomfort, she wasn't opposed to it.
"Mom, you smell so good."
Xi Xi was nestled in Meng Zhiyao's arms, her little hands wrapped around her mother's slender waist.
"Because Mom just took a shower, and there's aromatherapy in the bedroom, I'll help you take a bath tomorrow if you like."
"Oh dear, I'll be naked! I'll be so shy!" Xi Xi buried her face in Meng Zhi's chest, her voice filled with anticipation and shyness. "Will Xi Xi smell exactly like Mommy after she washes?"
"That's right, exactly the same."
"Then I'll bring the little ducklings!"
"OK."
"And there are clucking chicks."
"Okay, Mom will buy the biggest bathtub tomorrow."
"Then Xixi will bring the whole family of chicks and ducklings!"
Meng Zhi chuckled softly and hugged the child tightly: "Okay, whatever."
Pei Yiyan and Meng Zhiyao unknowingly formed a tacit understanding and agreement: Xixi would sleep with Pei Yiyan during the week and with Meng Zhiyao on weekends.
At first, Pei Yiyan thought he would not be used to it, after all, he had been taking care of the little one for almost a year. When the little one first started kindergarten, he even experienced mild separation anxiety and would secretly skip class every day to see her.
However, on the night his son went to sleep next door, he didn't seem worried or uncomfortable at all. He calmly stayed up all night playing games and only turned off his phone and went to sleep just before dawn.
Xixi spends most of the weekend staying next door, and around noon she invites Pei Yiyan to come over for lunch.
Meng Zhiyao's cooking skills are not as good as Pei Yiyan's, but they are not bad. She is good at making small desserts, and she will bake egg tarts, cookies, or snowflake crisps after each meal.
It was another ordinary afternoon. Meng Zhi turned on the oven, and the house was filled with the aroma of cookies. After letting them cool down a little, she packed up the Oreo cookies and knocked on the door next door.
Pei Yiyan opened the door, and Xixi was lying on the sofa watching her tablet and laughing.
Pei Yiyan welcomed the person in, then turned and went to the kitchen to wash a pound of cherries and peel a bowl of durian flesh.
He had previously discovered that Meng Zhiyao liked to eat these two fruits, especially durian, and had even cooked a pot of durian chicken soup last time.
As soon as the durian flesh was served, Xi Xi, who had been focused on watching TV, suddenly snapped out of her reverie, gave Meng Zhi the largest piece, and then picked up the second largest piece of durian flesh and started eating it.
It's chewy, fragrant, and soft.
Pei Yiyan looked at the mother and daughter's identical expressions of happiness and smiled with a smile.
"It's delicious."
When Xixi is happy, she likes to jump around the whole house, and the aroma of durian becomes stronger and stronger, penetrating everywhere.
The fleeceflower vine growing on the balcony swayed gently.
"Aaaaaah, I can't take it anymore!"
Bang! Green sparks exploded, and a person appeared out of nowhere.
A little boy with a heart-shaped green leaf on his head and completely naked rushed in like a firecracker.
"Put that yellow poop down right now!"
The three people in the living room seemed to be frozen in place, completely dumbfounded.
Xi Xi tilted her head blankly and asked, "Xiao Hei, why are you here? Xi Xi didn't call you."
"Do you think I wanted to come out? It stinks terribly."
Little Black pinched his nose and fanned himself, stamping his feet in frustration: "Xi Xi, why do you like to eat such smelly things? Come back to the mountain with me, and I'll treat you to some fragrant dirt!"
I thought Xixi was living a life of luxury down the mountain, but I never imagined she was actually living such a miserable life there.
If his vine hadn't complained to him, he wouldn't have known there was something even more stinky than a weasel's fart.
Xixi is eating so heartily, it's so pitiful qaq
Xi Xi laughed and shook her head: "It doesn't smell bad at all, it smells really good! Xiao Hei, come and try it, it's delicious."
When she first smelled durian, she also thought it smelled awful and mistakenly thought that Meng Zhiyao was so poor that she could only eat rotten fruit in order to support her. She felt heartbroken and burst into tears.
Until she took a bite of durian flesh, she instantly became a die-hard durian fan.
Xi Xi sided with the evil durian camp, leaving Pei Yiyan all alone; he was the only one in the family of three who didn't eat durian.
The mother and daughter can eat a whole durian in a day, and the whole house is marinated in the flavor.
Once the little girl takes a liking to a certain food, she will eat it without restraint until she gets tired of it. Unfortunately, eating too much durian can cause internal heat. Once, Xixi suffered from constipation due to internal heat and cried out in pain.
She was crying and biting a tissue, saying her butt was going to explode.
Pei Yiyan, his face expressionless, was both angry and amused as he used an enema on the little girl whose bottom was swollen.
Kids forget how badly they're punished, and once the wound heals, they forget the pain. They behave themselves for a couple of days, and then they can't resist stopping at a fruit stand again.
She stood in front of the stall, staring at Pei Yiyan with her round eyes.
Pei Yiyan was sometimes really annoyed by her. He wasn't a very patient person, and several times he wanted to give the child a good spanking.
But Xixi had already figured out how to manipulate her father, and before she knew she was about to get a beating, she would immediately act cute and pitiful.
She wrapped her arms tightly around her father's legs, rubbed her chubby little face against him, and looked at him with a stubborn yet innocent pout, looking like she was about to cry but wasn't.
She didn't say anything, but Pei Yiyan surrendered without hesitation. No matter how angry he was, he couldn't bear to lay a finger on the leaky cotton-padded jacket.
Later, Pei Yiyan took a different approach and quietly developed a series of durian-related food products.
Durian pizza, durian roasted chicken, durian ice cream, freeze-dried durian, durian cheese bread—you wouldn't know he had the potential to be a Western cuisine chef until you saw him make it.
He was forced to develop all sorts of skills, which is truly a testament to his unwavering and touching fatherly love.
Meng Zhiyao was completely bewildered by the sudden appearance of the naked little black child in the living room. Pei Yiyan quickly grabbed his coat from the sofa and wrapped it around the child.
"You little rascal!" His mind raced. "Put your flying elephant away!"
"What kind of behavior is this in broad daylight?" Pei Yiyan said coldly, as if he had a toothache, "Didn't I give you clothes? Why are you naked again?"
Xiao Hei answered honestly, "My dad liked it, but he took it from me."
Pei Yiyan choked for a moment, then raised her voice slightly, "Your father doesn't wear clothes either?"
"Yes, I've never seen him wear clothes since I was born."
He's got so many grievances but no words. He's supposed to be an old monster who's been down from the mountain before, how can he be so shameless?
Xi Xi glanced at Pei Yiyan, her eyes saying, "See, I told you so. Da Hei is an unreliable father."
Like father, like son. Pei Yiyan was at a loss for words; the development of civilization among the mountain monsters was worrying.
Meng Zhiyao had heard the father and daughter talk about Fragrant Hills, and immediately guessed the identity of the uninvited guest in front of her.
"You must be Xixi's good friend, Xiaohei, right?" She put down the fruit plate she was holding, squatted down, and smiled warmly. "Hello, I'm Xixi's mother. Have you eaten yet?"
Xiao Hei jumped.
"lady!"
He was so shocked that he immediately performed a grand ceremony of three bows and nine kowtows.
The tree spirit's aura was too strong, overpowering the scent of the Heartbreak Grass. And since Xiao Hei was a little monster with shallow cultivation, he had to sniff carefully to distinguish the hidden aura.
Meng Zhiyao was startled by Xiao Hei's series of actions.
"Oh no, no, no!"
She helped Xiao Hei up so he wouldn't continue kneeling.
"Xixi, when did you find your wife? Why didn't you tell me beforehand? I didn't prepare any gifts."
"Daddy's been with Mommy the whole time, can't you smell Mommy's scent?" Xi Xi grinned mischievously, "I know, you must not have been cultivating properly and you were slacking off, right?"
Xiao Hei scratched his head from side to side.
He patted her all over and said, “Madam, this is a fruit my father gave me. This fruit is eight hundred years old. Eating it will ensure that you stay young and beautiful forever.”
For the little monster, it's a thirst-quenching fruit that also slightly increases its power; for humans, it's a once-in-a-century black technology.
Eight hundred years! Won't it expire?
There doesn't seem to be a specific production date, so how can it be consumed?
Meng Zhi shook her head instinctively and refused, "No need to thank me, you should eat this precious thing."
Xi Xi: "Mom, Xiao Hei is your grandson, and it's only natural for a grandson to be filial to his grandmother!"
Pei Yiyan and Meng Zhiyao were both taken aback, a big question mark appearing above their heads.
Xi Xi: "Oh, you don't remember what happened before? Then let me tell you."
A hundred years ago, the hot-blooded young father, Big Black, fought with Mother Heartbreak Grass. The outcome of the fight was clear: Big Black was defeated by Heartbreak Grass and willingly recognized her as his godmother.
Given this relationship, it was perfectly normal for Xiao Hei, as a grandson, to perform the grand ceremony befitting the demon realm for Meng Zhiyao.
Xi Xi recounted the heroic deeds of the Heartbreak Grass Mother in a melodious and rhythmic manner. Meng Zhiyao listened in a daze, and then embarrassedly tucked her hair behind her ear.
She was quite amazing in her past life.
“The past is the past. You can still call me Aunt Meng now.” She scooped out a piece of durian flesh with a small spoon. “What we just ate is called durian. It’s a fruit that smells bad but tastes delicious. It’s soft, sweet, and melts in your mouth. Would you like to try some?”
The little monster has a keen sense of smell; the stench of durian is amplified hundreds of times in his nose, equivalent to a weasel farting right in front of his nose.
Xiao Hei was terrified and waved his hands repeatedly, saying, "No, no, it's too scary."
"Alright." Meng Zhiyao didn't force him. She looked him up and down and suggested with a smile:
"There are other fruits and snacks at home, you can try some of the others."
Xiao Hei was a little reserved and shy, touching the soft fabric of his body and said, "My family also has a lot of delicious food. Would you like to come to my house as guests? My dad has collected a lot of soil with different flavors. There must be a flavor you like."
Pei Yiyan quickly refused, "No need, we're not used to it."
Who wants to see a father and son running naked, which is inappropriate for children?
It's so spicy it hurts my eyes.
Once is never enough, Pei Yiyan continued, "You're not allowed to show up without clothes from now on. I'll take you to buy two sets of clothes."
Xi Xi: "Daddy, I want Big Black Daddy too."
"knew."
Since we're going out, we can't go completely naked.
Meng Zhiyao temporarily dressed Xiao Hei in Xi Xi's clothes.
Aside from her slightly dark skin, Xiao Hei actually has very delicate features, and she doesn't look out of place even when wearing a dress. Plus, she doesn't have much of a sense of gender and is happy to wear Xi Xi's clothes.
The only problem is that Xixi's clothes are a bit small. When he puts on capri pants, they become shorts, which looks a bit funny, but overall they look good.
This was Xiao Hei's first time coming down the mountain, and like Xi Xi before him, he was overwhelmed by the choices in the children's clothing store.
Fearing that his unreliable father would steal his clothes again, Pei Yiyan specially bought two discounted short-sleeved shirts for him to take back to the mountain.
Xiao Hei was deeply moved and, holding Meng Zhi's hand, said, "Madam, if you ever need any help in the future, just ask me anytime. I will do anything for you."
Pei Yiyan:
He bought it, he paid for it.
Why don't you open your eyes and take another look?
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